The story of the Central European region, the largest one in the B2Holding Group in terms of Group revenues, started six years ago as a greenfield operation. Today, the region consists of seven countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro.
The story of the Central European region, the largest one in the B2Holding Group in terms of Group revenues, started six years ago as a greenfield operation. Today, the region consists of seven countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Serbia, Slovenia and Montenegro. Since then, the B2H CE region has developed an efficient and profitable unit, currently one of the most profitable regions in the B2Holding family, but also in the NPL (non-performing loans) industry.
Ilija Plavčić, Regional Director of B2H Central Europe, points out that the company has additional capacities to grow further and develop new ideas, even though it already holds the leading position in the regional market.
“Considering the fact that we were a startup just a few years ago, our growth is something that we are extremely proud of – a total of 26% of the Group’s revenues comes from the CE region. A large project that we launched last year, which we are very proud of, is a new online platform, B2 Assets. It is an asset managing platform with a large number of loans and collaterals from six European countries, intended for NPL-, single ticket- and real estate investors,“ Plavčić said.
Collaboration and communication on Group level
Last year, the CE region initiated several projects on Group level that encouraged stronger collaboration, communication and knowledge exchange between the regions.
“We strongly rely on best practice programs and we find that giving our people the opportunity to exchange to other countries and regions within the Group and keeping them in the company to be the key part of our success. When it comes to investing in our people, among other things, we implemented a Future potential program (FUPO) in 2018, which enables local managers from all over the CE region to nominate their candidates for a one-year development program. After completing this tailor-made program, our candidates have the chance to work in any of the countries within the region and to grow professionally as managers or team leaders. Furthermore, we established the B2 Academy, a one-year educational program designed for advanced and successful students of the FUPO program. From our point of view, this is the right direction to guarantee us further growth and talented future managers,“ he added.
Looking towards the future
“The regulatory environment within the countries of the B2H CE region is expected to be aligned with the regulatory framework of the European Union. So far, we are pleased with the significant progress achieved within this area in countries that currently do not have the required regulations and the countries that are not part of the EU. Another important goal that we want to achieve in the upcoming period is further digitalization. To accomplish that, we will continue to develop and utilize a regional hub in Zagreb, Croatia, for functions that are servicing the entire CE region. In the end, maintaining selected growth in countries where we operate, strong contribution towards the development of the Group’s projects and operational excellence are the three main targets for B2Holding in the CE region this year,“ Plavčić concluded.